Drug Lord: The Book

"The drug smuggling business goes on, the slaughtered dead pile up, the U.S. agencies continue to ratchet up their budgets, the prisons grow larger and all the real rules of the game are in this book, some kind of masterpiece." -- Charles Bowden

Tagged: Baja California Sur

During sleepless nights in an immigrant detention center in Texas just north of the border, Emilio Gutierrez Soto has had a lot of time to think. Shivering on a flimsy mattress under thin sheets, 54-year-old Gutierrez finds himself circling back to the same question: Was it worth it?

Was it worth writing those articles critical of the Mexican military? Was it worth having to flee Mexico after receiving threats against his life?

Many miles away, in a teeming Mexican metropolis, Julio Omar Gomez is not confined behind bars, but might as well be.

Since last spring, Gomez, 37, has been living under state protection in a cramped, anonymous apartment many miles from home. He typically only leaves for appointments with his psychologist, who is treating him for anxiety and post-traumatic stress.

Gomez, too, wonders whether his journalism was worth it. Was exposing government corruption in his home state of Baja California Sur worth the three attacks on his life? Was it worth having to send his children into hiding?

Last year, reporters and photographers turned up dead in Mexico at a rate of about one per month, making it the most dangerous country in the world for journalists after war-torn Syria. They were some of the country’s most fearless investigators and sharp-tongued critics, shot down while shopping, while reclining in a hammock, while driving children to school. In January, 77-year-old opinion columnist Carlos Dominguez was waiting at a traffic light with his grandchildren when three men stabbed him 21 times.

Suspected Mexican cartel gunmen murdered yet another Mexican reporter in the resort state of Baja California Sur. The attack marks the fourth murder of a Mexican journalist within a matter of weeks.

On Friday, a team of gunmen fired multiple shots at veteran crime reporter Maximino Rodriguez Palacios outside of a shopping mall in the resort town of La Paz Baja California Sur, Mexico’s Colectivo Pericu reported. Rodriguez was the crime beat reporter for Colectivo Pericu.

According to the newspaper, the attack took place when Rodriguez and his wife were pulling into the shopping center and were parking their vehicle. That is when a group of gunmen riding in a white SUV used assault rifles to fire a barrage of bullets at Rodriguez; his wife was not injured in the attack.

Colectivo Pericu issued a strong condemnation of the attack against Rodriguez and demanded that Mexican authorities put a stop to the impunity with which journalists are targeted. In addition to working for Colectivo Pericu, Rodriguez had previously been the spokesman for the attorney general’s office and for the state court.